| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: of family pride as Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon herself.
It was overpoweringly ridiculous,--we must honestly confess it,
--the deportment of the maiden lady while setting her shop in
order for the public eye. She stole on tiptoe to the window,
as cautiously as if she conceived some bloody-minded villain to
be watching behind the elm-tree, with intent to take her life.
Stretching out her long, lank arm, she put a paper of pearl
buttons, a jew's-harp, or whatever the small article might be,
in its destined place, and straightway vanished back into the dusk,
as if the world need never hope for another glimpse of her. It
might have been fancied, indeed, that she expected to minister to
House of Seven Gables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: missing chapter should not be added in the next edition: the hiatus
is too great: it leaves the reader too uneasy before this touching
picture of a writhing worm substituted for the invulnerable giant.
But it is none the less probable that in no other way could Mr Harris
have got at his man as he has. For, after all, what is the secret of
the hopeless failure of the academic Bardolaters to give us a credible
or even interesting Shakespear, and the easy triumph of Mr Harris in
giving us both? Simply that Mr Harris has assumed that he was dealing
with a man, whilst the others have assumed that they were writing
about a god, and have therefore rejected every consideration of fact,
tradition, or interpretation, that pointed to any human imperfection
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a
loud, rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed to travel back
through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which
stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water
curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled
him! The cannon had taken an hand in the game. As he shook
his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he
heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and
in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in
the forest beyond.
"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
